We’ve been a fan of Cesura Lab for some time, and of collective founder and artistic director Alex Majoli for as long as both Matt and I have known his work. When Daria Birang wrote in to us about some upcoming workshops hosted by Cesura Lab, I thought it’d be a great opportunity to talk to the group about their philosophy and operations. The answers we got back during the interview were a bit enigmatic at times, but illuminating as to how a group of photographers might operate in the new media environment mixing editorial, gallery, commercial, and any other means of getting photography out to audiences. The questions and answers (formatted as received) are below:

Dvafoto: What is Cesura Lab?

Cesura: Cesuralab is a photographer’s collective

What does the name mean?

It means something like “cut off lab”, which comes from the name of the little village, Cesura, where the studio in alex majoli’s house started years ago, and since we are in the middle of the country side in Italy, cut off from civilization, we kept the name.

Why have the photographers come together?

what we can do together we can’t do alone. we are putting our forces together so everyone gains.

What is Cesura Lab as a whole?

it really is a studio, a playground in which we come and work, edit, talk, come up with projects and talk some more. we smoke a lot of cigarettes too.

What is it’s mission?

We think that photography has perfectly represented a world in the past but that world has changed completely. Most of contemporary photography seems to apply the dictates of that photography trying talk about contemporary reality with a language that doesn’t belong to it anymore. What we aim to do and what we might consider our mission is trying to not adapt the world to old photography, but to adapt photography to the new world.

Is Cesura an arts organization?

no, we are an independent group of photographers trying to stay out of the system, we want to make a difference, on our own, without a funder with a big voice.

A journalism organization?

we don’t like to put ourselves in one particular category, we all do different photography and we try to encourage each other’s differences.

An education organization?

no, but we use our resources, space and contacts for photography workshops and masterclasses.

Do these distinctions matter to the group?

not at all.
Read on »

VII and MSF (Doctors without Borders) have just unveiled their latest collaboration, Starved for Attention. The project, a multimedia campaign featuring photos, videos, interviews, petitions, exhibitions, panel discussions, and other events, seeks to “expose the neglected and largely invisible crisis of childhood malnutrition” worldwide. Photographers Marcus Bleasdale, Jessica Dimmock, Ron Haviv, Antonin Kratochvil, Franco Pagetti, Stephanie Sinclair, and John Stanmeyer, have produced documentaries for the project in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, India, Mexico, and the United States. Marcus Bleasdale’s piece, Frustration, from Djibouti is the only one online right now, but more will be released over the coming months. The exhibition is currently on display in Brooklyn at the VII Gallery (map), and will travel through the rest of the year. Check out the project blog, too.

Two collectives are putting their money where their mouths are and supporting new journalism. It’s great to see this kind of effort and monetary support rising up from within the ranks of photographers.

Luceo Images’ Student Project Award is due real soon, but you still have time to submit. From the call for entries: “Central to LUCEO’s mission is our belief in the importance of long-term projects. We also understand that developing photographers need support. To advance both of these causes, LUCEO has created the Luceo Student Project Award, which will be disbursed annually to a talented student photographer in support of a significant and developing body of work.” One winner will receive $1000 to pursue the project as well as direct mentorship from one member of Luceo Images.

MJR’s film grant aims to support film-based projects, and will grant $500 to one photographer. More than that, the group wants “to start a conversation. This is where the information/drinks evening, portfolio reviews and the winner’s event come into play – it’s all an opportunity for us to get to know you and for you to get to know the wider photographic community.”

I know many photographers worry that their work isn’t good enough to win these sorts of competitions, but the only sure way not to win is not to enter. You lose nothing by entering, and gain valuable experience of editing a story or portfolio. If you’re even halfway thinking about entering, do it!

Be sure to check out more calls for entry on our photo calendar.

The photo agency/collective VII has unveiled a new online project dubbed VII Magazine. There’s a bit of content up already, including an interview with Jessica Dimmock, a presentation of Marcus Bleasdale’s fashion work for New York magazine, Ron Haviv’s recent coverage of the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, a look inside Christopher Morris’ book My America (previously interviewed here at dvafoto), John Stanmeyer’s coverage of fires in the Amazon, and more.

David Walter Banks (previously interviewed) wrote in to tell us about the upcoming Luceo Images and MJR publication and one-night exhibition at 25CPW in New York City. The event will take place Thursday, Janaury 21, 2010, from 6-10pm at 25 Central Park West at the intersection of 62nd Street. The folks at Luceo and MJR are good friends of dva. The groups both have a ton of photo mojo, and it’s great to see their efforts combined. I asked Banks a few questions about the publication and event. His answers are excerpted below:

dvafoto: What got Luceo and MJR together? How long have you been working on this project?

David Walter Banks/Luceo: Various members of LUCEO and MJR have become friends over the past couple years, and had some time to spend together at LUCEO’s last two biannual meetings in NYC and then again at the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville. The show and publication have been at least 6 months in the making that I can remember….

Why a publication?

Both groups have strong editorial ties as well as work that leans more toward the fine-art world, so the publication was a mix between the two. The idea was to create something tangible and lasting instead of just a one-night event. It’s also the concept of taking the idea of a magazine, and creating a limited edition collectible art piece out of it. A publication that in our eyes warrants large-scale reproduction and display space on a gallery wall. To this end, the focus is more on the print piece instead of the show itself, but the catch is that you have to attend to receive the publication.

Will we be seeing new work? Whose work will be in the show (all the photographers in each collective or just a selection?)?

The piece and show will feature work from each photographer involved in the two groups, as well as the craftsmanship of the designer and editor we had the good fortune of collaborating with. The show will feature some old work and some new, but certainly all in a different presentation than before.

The release says “Issue One” — will Issue Two also be Luceo and MJR, or is the first issue testing the waters for something bigger? When will we see #2?

We’re not ready to announce anything yet, but the door is open, and this will certainly not be the end of our collaborations with MJR, who have been the driving force behind the publication….

I wouldn’t say the show is just testing the waters, because I do believe it is an end and not just a means, but it is a sign of what’s to come. Both of these groups have similar feelings about collaborating and building bridges within the photographic community and beyond. I believe each group will build from this experience and take that forward into future endeavors.

Luceo is: David Walter Banks, Kendrick Brinson, Matt Eich, Kevin German, Tim Lytvinenko, Daryl Peveto, Matt Slaby
MJR is: Mustafah Abdulaziz, Ying Ang, Matthew Craig, Julius Metoyer, Gareth Phillips, Brandon Thibodeaux

D ernière victime de la crise des agences de presse photographiques, L’Œil public déposera le bilan en janvier 2010.” – Le Monde, Dec. 23, 2009 (google translation)

There’s sad news this holiday season. Oeil Public, a small and very interesting French collective photo agency, will file for bankruptcy in January 2010 (original French). The reasons are familiar: declining assignments, declining fees, shrinking space for photography in print, etc. It’s sad to see this one go. The collective showed much promise over the past decade and had a great roster of photographers. Thoughts of a Bohemian has some analysis.

Be sure to check out Oeil Public’s 2009 Photos of the Year.

(via Thoughts of a Bohemian)

A couple of months ago my friend Darko Stanimirović in Belgrade mentioned that he was hoping to organize some of his friends in town to create a Serbian street photography collective of sorts. Over the following weeks the groundwork for Belgrade Raw was developed through memorable nights full of Montenegrin wine and impassioned debates. I’m proud to present my friends’ efforts here and invite you to see some awesome work by six Belgrade photographers. I invited Darko to answer a few questions about the project:

What is Raw all about, who is involved, how do you know each other?
Well, one day I realized there are a couple of really good freelance street photographers in Belgrade. I especially admired how they capture those ordinary-extraordinary moments of Belgrade life. And they didn’t really care about using old films or front flash. I liked that rawness, it was way more honest and interesting than any boring touristic picture we can see all around. Not just in tourist guides, but basically everywhere – night-life/news magazines, websites, photo galleries etc. We’re all either Belgrade-born or we’ve been living here for long enough to know it shows nothing about Belgrade, but it’s all anyone can really get. So we’re here to try to change it, to show all those small & big things no one wants to publish, but things that really make this city.

We know each other mostly over some Internet forums and Flickr pools. One night in a park, drinking cheap but fine wine, I proposed this idea of a website that would showcase portfolios of some interesting Belgrade-based street photographers to Luka-Strika, one of our photographers. Over next few nights I designed simple layout and coded it in Wordpress. In some three weeks the whole crew was gathered and voila! It’s cool how everything was brought to life really quickly.

Why does the city and photo community need this group?
It’s not just that we as photographers “see” other side of our city. There is a whole community of people who’d love to see something really different and “honest”, without that ugly touristic taste in it. And I’m talking about both people living in Belgrade/Serbia and foreigners. You can learn much more about a city by looking at works of it’s street photographers, than looking at tourist guides or surfing the promo websites. And for the photographers themselves, Belgrade Raw is important because it gives them a context in which to work. It’s always easier to “fill-in” when you have that framework.

What is it about Belgrade that you are focusing on?
It’s hard to tell exactly what we focus on. In a joke, we usually say “that’s something for newspapers, not for Belgrade Raw.” That means we also publish photos which probably wouldn’t be published in traditional sensationalistic media. We like normal, ordinary people, personal stories and interpretations. Someone would think the city is too small for such a “focused” project, but it’s not. In fact, it’s incredible how many big and little stories are still waiting to be covered, while there are so many local newspapers, magazines, TV stations, websites…

Why street photography? Why this manner of photographing Belgrade?
Street photography is a concept that perfectly matches our idea of showing our own, honest view of Belgrade, because it involves photographers who “wander” all around, by day or night, covering everything that seems interesting or important. It’s the opposite of “beautiful sunny day panorama of Belgrade, commissioned by…” Also, street photographers are often freelancers, so you kinda get that true personal view. Speaking of Raw, we don’t care if a photograph was created using a cellphone camera, compact, film or digital. Prime or plastic lens. All we care about is strong personal storytelling. And if you look at the whole “industry” of documentary photography, that’s more or less the direction it takes.

What is next?
We’ve only just begun, but we do have plenty of ideas. Right now, it’s important for us to continue photographing our city, there’s so much more to show. But in the same time, we make plans for print too. We would also love to make some kind of cooperation with other photo-collectives, especially with those in the neighboring countries. There are also plans for guest photographers, so we’re not being limited to “Belgrade-born” or “Serbian” or such. (ed: check out the recap of a workshop with Donald Weber in Belgrade that members of Raw attended, and helped support, for an example of where this project might continue to grow).

And how does this reflect Belgrade/Serbia/Serbs?
For starters, we’re avoiding traditional cliches. But not the other extreme either (“we’re all beautiful, peaceful, awesome people”), so we’re trying to find the right balance. No, we’re not trying actually. We don’t even think about it much, I guess it just comes naturally. But about some other, deeper sync with Serbia/Serbs in general, we’ll have to wait.

The site is still developing and new projects are uploaded every week. One of my personal favorite series, and which sums up the Raw project so well, is “Wind” by Nemanja Knežević. A fresh, personal view of the city that is completely honest, and confounding to much of Serbia’s reputation. Great to see photographers, under their own motivation, creating their own work under their own voice, and finding ways to get it seen on their terms. I’m looking forward to spending more time with this crew when I’m back in Belgrade and maybe producing my own street work from town.
You can, and should, also follow these guys via Belgrade Raw’s Blog, their Flickr Feed, Twitter or become the 521st fan of theirs on Facebook.

I’m usually wary of photo essays about poverty and drugs. Eugene Richards has unleashed a torrent of imitators, and the results are often voyeuristic and exploitative–unless there’s an underlying story, photos of depraved debasement do little more than serve as a vehicle for gawking at the unmentionables, grotesques without empathy. Benjamin Lowy’s “The Afghan High” does the opposite.

The essay presents Afghanistan’s drug culture and the government’s futile fight against the opium growers as facets of a complex international political issue with both compassion and journalistic distance. The portrait at the top of this post, for instance, portrays the man not just as a token drug user but instead as a thinking, emotive, whole agent caught in the middle of a bad situation. If the essay stopped with the drug users, though, its value and interest would have been lost. By including images of the government’s meager efforts to fight poppy growers, the essay becomes a powerful statement on the entirety of Afghanistan’s relationship with drugs. The last photo, especially, (sorry I can’t link to it) evokes an idea of just how ingrained drug culture is in Afghan culture: the poppy fields, which are the focus of strategic international maneuvering and the fate of which may determine the outcome of America’s military efforts, are a place where children play. Lowy’s control of light throughout the essay is breathtaking, as well.